


In the Darkness

by Doctorinblue



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2020-10-04 09:10:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20468567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorinblue/pseuds/Doctorinblue
Summary: Hawkeye and BJ finally take the chance





	1. Chapter 1

It's cooler outside, Hawkeye reasons.

The change is marginal at best, but he finds BJ willing to duck out of the movie and into the chairs they've set up behind the supply shed for a night exactly like this one. Hawkeye settles beside BJ, watches him tilt his head back and close his eyes, the slightest of a summer breeze ruffling his hair. He watches the way his worry lines begin to relax, how he seems to melt into his surroundings. 

Hawkeye can't help but wonder, once again, if BJ is imagining himself back home, if he's truly ever here with him or if he's left too much of his heart in Mill Valley. Still....

They've been doing this too long, balancing on the precipice and worrying about the what-ifs, calculating the chance of survival on impact. Hawkeye doesn't want to bury the fear anymore, he doesn't want to creep back from the edge and spend another few minutes in the shower pretending he doesn't want BJ body and mind and soul. BJ is so close and so damn real, and he just wants, needs, to know what BJ's lips taste like on a Saturday night.

Something needs to break and Hawkeye's certain it'll be him

He forces his eyes to the sky and sees only stars. It's so silent now, here. There are no snipers or bombs or the sounds of helpless desperation to ruin this moment. No. Not tonight. He can almost pretend they could be anywhere else. When he closes his eyes he can hear the lap of the waves, just him and Beej on a beach somewhere.

He's almost buying it. He curls his hand and lets it relax. Hawkeye needs BJ closer, he needs to forget and hold on and a million other things he can't process at this exact moment.  
BJ clears his throat and Hawkeye's eyes snap open. He rolls his head to look at him. They are alone....well, as alone as they can be and the temptation to kiss him is burning a hole through Hawkeye.

"Hawk," BJ says, then shakes his head. He leans up, pulls Hawkeye's chair in closer.

Then he settles back as if nothing has happened. Hawkeye's heart seems to have relocated to his throat and the air seems thicker now. He has to focus on sucking it in, which at the very least, takes some off his attention off of the way BJ's overheated arm is pressed against his.

How is he supposed to survive this? 

If something doesn't happen he's going to do something stupid. Or say something stupid. Something like 'I'm_ stupidly_ in love with you Beej, would you mind not breaking my heart.'

He lets out a slow breath. His stomach is tight and his head is fuzzy, and he'll blame the gin (did they drink tonight?) if this all turns out to be a friendship breaking mistake.

He slowly reaches his hand out and strokes his fingers over BJ's hand. When BJ doesn't shove him away, Hawkeye is all too willing to wade deeper. He runs his finger up BJ's arm, over the muscles he's memorized despite never touching BJ quite like this. He looks into his eyes and for the first time with complete honesty he realizes he wants BJ to fall too. This feels like romance because it is, and the thought causes Hawkeye's finger to jerk to a stop.

Hawkeye isn't sure how to continue, not when this means everything, not when he needs BJ to survive the war, and if he's very lucky, the rest of his life. BJ could tear him apart, piece by piece, and Hawkeye knows he'd let it happen, that he'd die in BJ's hands if it meant spending his last moment with him.

"Hawk?" BJ says, clears his throat. "Please."

He scoots in closer to BJ and runs his fingers over his cheek and watches BJ's eyes snap shut. 

"It's been a while," BJ mutters and Hawkeye kisses his nose.

Then his lips brush over his BJ's stubble, and when BJ doesn't flinch - Hawkeye would bet he's not the only one struggling to breathe here- he presses his lips to BJ's. 

BJ doesn't hesitate to respond, he lifts his head off the chair. Hawkeye drowns in the feeling, in the taste of popcorn and weak coffee, and he'll remember this until the day he dies. BJ's hand finds his cheek, stretches around the back of Hawkeye's head and curls up into his hair. The sensation keeps Hawkeye in the moment (as if he needs the help) and if Hawkeye has any choice at all, he'll never stop kissing BJ.

He shifts himself onto BJ's chair, and there is no way it should hold them, but it does. Hawkeye has a hand wrapped around BJ's neck and the other is curled in his hair, holding him close. BJ lifts his hips and slips his hand in between them. He brushes over Hawkeye's chest, tugging his shirt up higher until his fingers brush against skin. They've hardly done anything, but Hawkeye is panting and trying to maintain as many contact points as he can safely and physically manage.

BJ's fingers slip lower, run slowly over the outside of Hawkeye's pants. Hawkeye swallows and tries to still his hips, tries to pretend he still has self-control in his control. 

He feels fingers in his waistband, the button managed, and then BJ's fingers inch lower. Hawkeye drops his head to his shoulder, presses his lips to the material and lets the moan drown against BJ. BJ's fingers struggle to reach him, and they need to move anywhere else, but Hawkeye has lost the willpower and the blood supply to his legs. He shifts up, and BJ's fingers stroke over his cock and Hawkeye needs more. He needs release and a promise of forever (though he'll settle for BJ's hand) and he's so jumbled up that the sound of laughter  
nearly makes him topple into the dirt.

"Inside?" he manages. 

It's only slightly safer, but ducking into the dark back corner feels less like playing with fire than having his way with BJ in the open. Plus, less chance of snipers. He pulls BJ off the chair and they hurry around the corner. He doesn't see the source of laughter, but the movie is wrapping up and they slip into the supply shed. Hawkeye feels a giggle bubbling up inside and he tries to bury it behind his hand as BJ tugs him back and they fall onto the cot.

BJ kisses him at once, lips warm and soft and hands strong and insistent. They tug at each other's clothes, and Hawkeye's shirt is half off when the door rattles and BJ's off him before Hawkeye's lust blown mind can process. BJ gives him an urgent, desperate look, and Hawkeye quickly adjusts himself as well, brushing his hair down to semi-normal. Frank walks around the corner as BJ grabs a bedpan, glancing at Frank.

"Hi, Frank."

"Yeah, hi, Frank," Hawkeye says, giving a small wave, leaning against the wall as a slightly shattered version of his lounging self.

"What are you two doing in here?"

"Looking for a bedpan," BJ says. 

"And here you are," Hawkeye adds, breathing carefully, thankful that if nothing else, Frank's appearance has drained all the effects of BJ from his body.

"Oh,you..you-" Frank says, grabbing a box

Hawkeye raises an eyebrow and waits, and how he's not falling apart, coating the supply tent floor with the shattered pieces of his hope he's not sure. Frank looks them over, blinks a few times, and then shrugs. He leaves without another word, none the wiser, if for no other reason than the truth isn't something Frank can fathom.

BJ slides the bedpan back onto the shelf, grips the wood for a moment, his head dropped and his breathing slow and deliberate

He looks back at Hawkeye, and Hawkeye can see the moment BJ realizes how much loving him might cost. Not just here, but back home. Peg might have, by some miracle, already come to love Hawkeye but the rest of the world remained a problem. The Army remained a problem.

"Buy you a cup of coffee?" Hawkeye asks, standing up, brushing his hands over his clothes.

His heart is beating funny, and his vision is gray but he needs BJ to stop making that face, to stop looking like he might bolt if Hawkeye takes a step closer. 

"Think I'll get some air," BJ says, and walks away, leaving Hawkeye alone in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

"Damn it," BJ exhales. 

BJ's body sags back into the chair, the sweat on his skin drying and chilling him in what had previously been a warm summer night with Hawkeye at his side. He holds little hope that Hawkeye will come to find him, that'll he'll beg for a middle before their sudden end, that he'll demand what BJ owes him.

An explanation, at the very least.

How can he explain that while he wants Hawkeye, the world demands the status quo? How can he put into words the way his heart is hammering at the base of his throat and no matter how he scrubs his hands over his eyes, he still sees Frank trying and failing to put the two very obvious pieces into place. Would they be that lucky next time? Would Colonel Potter see them, or Margaret? Or someone else like Frank, with little discretion and abundant opinions?

It doesn't matter who sees them, truthfully. The problem isn't getting caught, it's the label that will follow if he and Hawkeye are discovered in the supply tent with their shorts around their ankles. He's not sure he's ready to bear the weight, that he's ready for his family to shoulder his burden. Back before Peg, when he was younger and plenty more foolish, none of that mattered. Now he's got a bigger picture to see, a wife and daughter to put before himself.

He has to think of Erin now. 

The Army shipping him home because he's fallen for another man isn't going to make Erin's future any brighter. And his Peg, she'll love him through anything that comes, loves Hawkeye from a world away, but she'll still have to face the neighbor's gossip and scorn if they know where his tongue has been.

They'd care far less if he bedded a nurse or even a local. At least they could understand that a man gets lonely. Never so lonely he reaches for another man though. Never so lonely he lowers himself to that.

BJ leans back. He should be searching for Hawkeye right this moment, finding him before he has time to lick his wounds and trade his sorrows for an ulcer. BJ should be running towards Hawkeye, explaining everything he's sure Hawkeye knows, far too well, and promising to make the world right again just as soon as he can figure out how to tilt it.

He draws in a breath, makes up his mind to face guilt and trouble head-on until he's startled by laughter. He can hear his friends, his coworkers (whatever these people have become) pouring out of the tent, the movie over. Coming out from behind the shack, even alone, feels as good as admitting his guilt, so he leans back and waits until the sound turns to silence, and the wind and the pain are the only things he feels in the air.

"Sir?"

Klinger's found him, it seems, the hand on the shoulder gentle but insistent. It takes BJ a long and foggy moment to realize he's fallen asleep out here, or very nearly anyway. It's not his best choice, but tonight has been a series of abnormally bad ideas culminating in a friendship - relationship - breaking act of cowardice. If only he hadn't pulled Hawkeye in closer, hadn't tasted his lip and realized the only other person he's loved this helplessly is Peg. He can't unlove Hawkeye anymore than he can find the beginning of an explanation for Klinger.

So, he doesn't try.

He pats his hand, squeezes, and lets what's unsaid do all the talking.

The Swamp is still his temporary home, and he'll have to return to face Hawkeye sooner or later. He can't fathom explaining a sudden request to hop tents, no matter the joy it might cause their ferret roommate. And a world where Hawkeye isn't a bunk away, close enough to see, to be sure that they are both real and solid and something, even if that something doesn't have an easy definition, isn't a world he wants to live in. Not now, not when Hawkeye has scorched a path across his life. There's no going back, this counts for everything and the thought makes his stomach tight and if Klinger thinks he's drunk and trying to keep his last meal all the better really.

Maybe he won't notice that BJ is in over his head, drowning on his feet.

He helps BJ to stand, his fingers wrap around BJ's arm and he helps him shuffle along as if BJ is lost child- as if he's incapable of making this journey alone. He's right of course, BJ leaning against him, playing the part of the drunk friend. The doctor who's seen too much in too few years, and sometimes has to forget to survive. Or maybe Klinger knows more than he's saying, maybe he could shine a light in the darkness if BJ just knew how to ask, but he's stumbling over words, choking over the 'what-ifs' and Klinger's left him at his door and returned to duty before BJ can even find a plea.

Wherever he's been expecting Hawkeye to be, or to be doing, it's not wrapped up in his blankets on his bunk. The lights are already off, Frank in his own bed, and the camp is none the wiser to what's happening inside them both. Business as usual. The thought doesn't bring him any comfort, and he slips off his boots and carefully settles onto his bunk.

Hawkeye is close enough to shake awake, likely he's only pretending anyway. BJ has time to undo this, to say something, anything, to explain the worry. The heartbreak and the dishonor, the shame he can bring on them all. He loves his family more than life itself, and he'll always try to protect them. Can Hawkeye see that? Does he know that he's family too?

BJ can and should keep his disgrace from tarnishing their lives. He can stop it, he knows all too well how to pretend, how to return to keeping his hands and mouth and heart to himself. He can bury the dreams and hopes for a future, and he can keep his world upright a little longer. He can lose Hawkeye to save him.  
He lays back, trapped in the darkness, in his bunk, and he can't see a way forward through the stark blackness of reality.


End file.
